EU job seeker’s aid worth €1.9m for 559 dismissed workers in Belgium

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. 559 employees of TNT Belgium at Liège Airport who lost their jobs following a transfer of operations to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport should receive €1.9 million in EU aid. On Thursday, the Committee on Budgets approved Belgium’s request for support from the European Globalisation […]

SAE Media Group 20th Annual Benelux Infrastructure Forum 16 – 17 November 2022

This article was published in association with SMI. Website: http://www.beneluxconf.com/EuropeanStingWL SAE Media Group proudly present the 20th Annual Benelux Infrastructure Forum, once again taking place in-person and in Amsterdam.  The 2022 iteration will bring together key professionals in the infrastructure, financing, and innovation sectors to discuss the latest issues and trends within the Benelux market.  […]

Right to disconnect: Why working late is becoming a thing of the past in Belgium

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Johnny Wood, Writer, Formative Content The rapid switch to remote working during the pandemic has made the line between home life and working hours unclear. Many remote workers feel they need to be available at all times. But […]

Antitrust: Commission carries out unannounced inspections in the animal health sector in Belgium

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission is conducting unannounced inspections at the premises of a pharmaceutical company active in animal health in Belgium. The Commission has concerns that the inspected company may have infringed the EU antitrust rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant position. The […]

NextGenerationEU: European Commission endorses Belgium’s €5.9 billion recovery and resilience plan

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has today adopted a positive assessment of Belgium’s recovery and resilience plan. This is an important step towards the EU disbursing €5.9 billion in grants under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). This financing will support the implementation of the crucial […]

Belgian Court orders AstraZeneca to deliver vaccine doses to the EU – Questions and Answers

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. Why did the European Commission start this Court proceeding and what did it intend to obtain? The company announced in January that it would not be in a position to deliver the number of doses laid down in the contract. The Commission and the […]

Recovery and Resilience Facility: Belgium, Italy, Austria, and Slovenia submit official recovery and resilience plans

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The Commission has received official recovery and resilience plans from Belgium, Italy, Austria, and Slovenia. These plans set out the reforms and public investment projects that each Member State plans to implement with the support of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The RRF […]

Belgium: keep up reforms to increase employment and productivity growth

This article is brought to you in association with OECD. Belgium’s tax, labour, pension and education reforms have improved the potential for stronger, sustainable and inclusive growth over the long term. Keeping up this momentum on structural reforms is key to energise the economy and keep it resilient to external risks and uncertainties, according to a […]

Budget MEPs back €1.6 million to help 400 former workers of Carrefour Belgium

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. 400 retail workers from Wallonia dismissed by the supermarket chain Carrefour should receive EU aid worth €1,632,028 to help find new jobs, the EP’s budget committee has decided. The measure, co-financed by the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) would help the 400 workers find […]

This is what Belgium’s traffic-choked capital is doing about emissions

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Emma Charlton, Senior Writer, Formative Content Brussels is one of the most congested capital cities in the world, and one of the most polluted. And with official data suggesting air pollution is getting worse, officials are under pressure to […]

US-EU trade negotiations: pointless tariffs against real economic growth

The European Council approved last Monday the European Commission’s proposals authorizing the latter to start negotiating with the US in order to eliminate industrial goods tariffs and reach an agreement on conformity assessment. Most of the member states were in favour of the commencement of the bilateral trade negotiations except for France. However, the fact […]

Siemens-Alstom merger: Will the EC succumb to Franco-German pressures for the sake of May’s EU Elections?

It was yesterday when executives of Siemens and Alstom met with EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager in one of their last attempts to convince her to give the green light for their merge. The European Commission (EC) is now left to decide till February 18 whether or not to approve the merger of the rail operations […]

Commission hardens its stance against carmakers ensuring emissions reductions targets

The car industry will be under tighter surveillance by the European Commission after 2020 when the next phase of the EU’s emission regulation will take place. All car manufacturers who do not meet the 2021 fleet CO2 emissions compliance for new passenger vehicles sold in the Old Continent will face fines of more than €14 […]

Charles Michel advocates a strong Europe that acts where it can add real value

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel debated the future of Europe with MEPs and and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Thursday 03-05-2018. This is what he told them. “I want a strong Europe that acts where it can add real value”, he said, […]

The West cannot ignore Russia; dazed Germany sitting on the fence

After the missile attacks by the Western trio of US, Britain and France against Damascus and other positions in war torn Syria, the Russian overlords and Assad regime in that part of the world, continues pursuing their agenda, as if nothing happened. From a certain angle truly nothing has changed regarding the military and political […]

Minority governments ‘à la mode’ in Europe but can they last long?

With the Italian elections set for 4 March and anticipated to produce a hang parliament, four out of the five bigger European countries will be in political limbo for a good part, if not for the entire new year 2018. France is the only exception in this Euro-plague of political uncertainty. In some cases the […]

Britain offers more money for an orderly Brexit but the Irish question resurges

If last Friday’s Reuters report from Brussels is correct and Theresa May and Donald Tusk agreed to solve the Brexit dead-end in ten days, then the wild Brexiteers must have retreated  and the orderly exit side has won the first round. Tusk, the President of the European Council said in a tweet that he told […]

Climate change update: will the UN member states regain momentum despite the little progress at COP23?

The 23rd conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) concluded last Saturday in Bonn but little progress was achieved and everyone is now awaiting next year’s negotiations in Poland where a rule book for the Paris agreement has to be finalised. All member states should reconsider their emission cuts upwards via […]

Catalonia secessionist leader takes Flemish ‘cover’; Spain risks more jingoist violence

The Catalonia crisis and the aftermaths after its diffusion can offer valuable lessons for the nature of jingoist politics and the motives, goals and the character of its main actors, on both sides of the fence. The Catalan secessionists led by Carles Puigdemont proved experts in setting the fire, but were incapable of making anything […]

Refugee crisis update: EU still lacks solidarity as Hungary and Slovakia refuse to accept EU Court’s decision

It was last Wednesday when the Court of Justice of the European Union rejected a challenge by Hungary and Slovakia regarding their denial on relocating refugees from Greece and Italy. Both countries though do not intend to change their position on the issue. Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos mentioned that there has […]

The four top Americans who flew to Europe perplexed things about Trump’s intentions

Four top ranking Washington bigwigs – who flew to Munich, Brussels and Bonn to mend fences with Europe, after Donald Trump termed NATO ‘obsolete’ and rejoiced the unraveling of the EU, left the Europeans bewildered with the dangerously diverging stories they had to narrate. Only the extreme right wing, Polish Defense Minister Anton Macierewicz seemed […]

Who can compel Wallonia to unlock CETA, the EU-Canada free trade pack?

No, it wasn’t just the tiny Wallonia region of Belgium and its 3.6 million French speaking inhabitants who blocked CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement). This is an EU-Canada free trade and investment pact that took eight years to the Brussels Commission and the Canadian authorities to draft. It was also the Brexit and the […]

Deutsche Bank: the next financial crisis is here and the lenders need €150 billion from taxpayers

Last Monday David Folkerts-Landau, the chief economist of Deutsche Bank, the ailing largest lender of Germany, in an interview with the prestigious newspaper ‘Die Welt’ stated that European banks must be subsidized with €150 billion in rescue money to recapitalize. Obviously, it will be the taxpayers to once more provide the capital the euro area […]

Is there a chance for the West to win the war on terror?

On the night of 13 November 2015 in Paris, after the ISIS operatives had hit almost simultaneously a concert hall, a major football stadium and some restaurants and bars leaving 130 dead and hundreds injured, the French President Francois Hollande said “we are at war”. Last Tuesday morning the same kind of ‘armed forces’ and […]

Migration crisis update: The “Habsburg Empire” comes back to life while EU loses control

It is today that Austria is arbitrarily hosting a Western Balkan counties migration meeting called “Managing Migration Together” where the Interior and Foreign ministers of seven countries (Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, FYROM, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia) have been invited to participate, with Greece, the main migrant gate, to be paradoxically excluded from the discussions. […]

Failing to see reality or deceiving the masses? The EU about poverty and social exclusion

Some six years ago the European Union set targets for an ambitious project called “The Europe 2020 Strategy”. Amongst other equally fallacious if not deceitful objectives, the leaders of the 28 EU member states undersigned the Commission’s proposal to “lift 20 million people out of poverty and social exclusion by 2020”. No need to say […]

Brexit Update: EU endorses unprecedented compromise to help Cameron out of the referendum mess he got himself into

Following the failure of the European Council’s summit on December 17-18 to answer positively to UK’s requests regarding EU migrant’s social benefits ban, it was time for the German Councellor and French President to take the lead and try to avoid a possible Brexit. Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande thus proposed to the British Prime Minister […]

Fair completion rules and the law of gravity don’t apply to banks

There is no end to EU Commission’s approvals of state aid and government bailouts of hundreds of EU struggling banks, as if the extensive fair competition legislation of the Union is valid for every other sector of the economy at the exception of banks. In the latest incident, the EU competition authorities actually looked the […]

EU: The Member States to pay for national banking problems

According to information released by global media, this week the European Union is about to conclude the discussions on its major new project, the Banking Union, with an arrangement providing that the cost of eventual bank resolutions and recoveries is to burden the country or countries where the bank in question is conducting its business. […]

Should Europe be afraid of the developing world?

China and India are undoubtedly the two heavyweights of the developing world. On their foot-steps one can categorise also Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and some more countries of South East Asia. Yes, those are the tigers of growth, based on the iron willingness of their people to secure a more or less comfortable life, after […]